Goth Girlfriend

Ivy and I are cuddling once more in the gaming room, our cats curled up with us. The nature spirit did a beautiful job with the garden, and Paige did a beautiful job giving her input on designs for the patterns of the various plants they placed around the palace. I’m very proud of them both, and I’m giving Ivy her reward in the form of lots of cuddles and kisses.

Paige will hopefully get her reward later tonight.

At that moment, Mia comes rushing into the room. “They’re so cute! Paige and Skylar just came back inside holding hands! I think Paige is ready to talk about whether or not she really wants to join now!” Mia gushes. Ivy and I immediately stand up and head back downstairs with the aeromancer, our cats following us curiously.

As we get downstairs, the sight that greets my eyes is one that makes me smile widely. Paige and Skylar, holding hands, each with a peaceful look on their face. Paige speaks up, her stuttering gone for the moment. “I’ve thought about everything you’ve said. I’m sure. I want to be with you all.” She says. Mia whoops happily. “Well then: Paige, will you be our girlfriend?” I ask simply. “Yes!” She exclaims.

Mia squeals, and Paige is immediately assaulted by a tight hug from both Skylar and Mia. They both step back to give Ivy and I a chance. “We’re all happy to be with you.” Ivy says, kissing her on the forehead. “Life is great here, I’m so glad you want to join us.” I tell her, and Paige beams.

She nuzzles into both of us, as we hold her lovingly. After a few moments, Mia breaks the silence. “Is anybody else getting hungry?” She asks. Paige looks up, giggling. “Starving, when’s dinner?” She asks. Ivy looks down at her fondly and boops her on the nose. “You don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ll make dinner and let you know when it’s ready. In the meantime, just sit back and cuddle with your new girlfriends. Sound good?” She asks.

Paige giggles, blushing hard. “Y-yes ma’am.” She says, her stutter returning in full ****. Ivy kisses her on the forehead once more, and this time it leaves the gothic terramancer playing with her hair happily. “Good girl.” Ivy teases, turning around and heading for the kitchen. Skylar and I gently guide Paige to the couch, and sandwich her between us for cuddles.

Sol has already followed Ivy to the kitchen, hoping for some food scraps. Luna contents herself with mewing at me from the ground, her way of asking to be picked up for snuggles. I pick her up and set her beside me, where she curls up happily. We put on a random show to watch while we cuddle with Paige, who is clearly ecstatic by the affection.

A couple of episodes of the show and some light massages and affection later, Ivy calls us all for dinner. Paige is chattering away happily and enthusiastically with us, seeming more comfortable and at ease with us than ever before. Now that she’s actually our girlfriend, her stuttering and blushing seems to only come when we’re actively teasing her. Which we do often, because it’s fun and she’s adorable.

Dinner conversation is mostly mundane, albeit really happy and excited from all of us, since we’re all riding the high of having a new girlfriend. The exception however, is when the topic turns to what our next move should be, now that we have Paige in our guild, and we’re fairly accustomed to having her fight with us.

“Olivia. She has to be our next move, right?” Mia asks. “That does make sense…” I trail off, thinking it over. “I mean, the only other two people we know are Elsa and Belle. Elsa probably wouldn’t join our guild, she really loves being a Fateweaver too much. She might still be able to help us a bit, but yeah.” Mia continues.

“And we don’t even know where to start with Belle. We don’t know where to find her, she sort of seems to just show up wherever she feels like. And she’s really scary and seems to want to work alone, so not really a good option for now. With Olivia, we know where to find her and we know that she said she might help us in future.” Mia finishes pitching.

“Sorry who’s Olivia?” Paige asks, looking around the table. “She’s a professor at the university we were going to. We all kind of dropped out to focus on this, but she’s still there. She has some kind of animal powers I think? What did you say her title was again Gemma?” Skylar asks. “Lady of the beasts. Still no idea what that means.” I answer, shrugging.

“You’ve never seen her fight?” Paige asks. We all shake our heads, except for Mia. “I have. She can shapeshift into any creature she’s killed and absorbed, and she takes on their abilities too. She can be brutal when she fights, lady of the beasts is a pretty accurate title. I once saw her rip apart a whole gang that kept harassing her pretty badly.” Mia explains.

She shudders. “Can’t say they didn’t deserve it with the awful things they’d done, but yeah.” “I’m a bit concerned that we’ll make ourselves a target if we go back to campus.” Ivy speaks up, and we all look at her. “We don’t know how many people are out there looking for us. We’ve been lucky so far.”

“But if we go out there and talk to Olivia, what happens if we get spotted or followed? What if the people from the Opera House are there?” She asks, prompting a shiver from the four of us who were there. Paige looks around at us, confused. “I’ll tell you later.” Skylar reassures.

“Could we do it incognito somehow?” Mia asks. “A group like us tends to attract a bit of attention. Ivy can obviously shapeshift to hide her green skin and I can change my hair colour, but I’m not sure how well that would work.” I say. “Wait…didn’t Elsa say something about being able to hide by constantly opening barriers?” Skylar wonders.

“Oh yeah, she did! She said one way to travel safely is to open a barrier, travel the length of it, then close it and open another. It shifts us along in real space. It’ll be a bit slow, but could definitely help for on foot travel.” Ivy recalls. “It would be pretty cumbersome to use by car, and going on foot to the campus would take ages.” I muse.

A few seconds of silence later, I click my fingers with an idea. “Wait, we could ask Elsa if we can borrow one of the Fateweaver cars! That way nobody will recognise us just by the car, since we still don’t know if they know what Skylar’s car looks like.” I suggest.

I look around the table, with everybody seeming to like the idea. “So just to recap, we’ll see if we can borrow a car from Elsa and the Fateweavers, and there’s a rental car place not far from here anyway if not, drive to campus, travel through barriers until we can find Olivia, then talk to her and ask her if she wants to join our guild?” Mia summarises.

“I think that sounds like a pretty decent plan. It’s about as safe as it can be, while still letting us actually ask her what we want to ask.” I say. “I think it’s about as good as we can get, short of just staying home.” Ivy agrees. “Anybody wanna stay home?” I ask. Universal head shaking. “Awesome, then it’s settled. Tomorrow, we find Olivia. Tonight, we celebrate!”

Our night continues cheerily, with the five of us chatting away happily and Paige being much more confident in talking to us now that she’s with us officially. We finish dinner and have dessert in the living room, snuggling and playing with our pets. Paige has taken a real liking to Dave, and snuggles with Skylar while they play with the happy wolf together.

I double check whether or not I can give Paige the mark of love yet, and it turns out she isn’t at a high enough relationship score yet with us, at 149 out of a required 180. She’s adorably miffed to find out that she can fall even deeper in love with us than she already has.